“Neither of us are good Amrithi, my dear,” Lalita said gently. “I have no clan anymore either. But we can be clan to each other.” She pressed her fingers to Mehr’s knuckles in fleeting comfort. “You’re a woman now. You’ve learned your rites and your sigils, and shown your ancestors the proper reverence. You are Amrithi, Mehr. The rite is your inheritance, just as it is mine. When the storm comes I’ll be here to dance with you. I promise this.”

Mehr felt an upswell in her heart. But she kept her expression calm.

“I appreciate it,” she said.

Lalita leaned back, took another delicate sip of her drink, and swiftly changed topic. She eased the conversation onto lighter ground, relating gossip from the racier circles she traveled within in Jah Irinah that Mehr had little access to. Lalita darted artfully from topic to topic, telling Mehr about scandals among the city’s merchants, and news of new fresh-faced courtesans rising in fame or infamy. She told Mehr about the restlessness among factions of the nobility, and the trouble they’d caused in response, or so she’d heard, to rumblings from the Emperor’s court.

“The young ones,” she said, “the ones who want to prove themselves and earn glory for their names, are causing no end of trouble in the city.”

“What are they doing?” Mehr asked.

Lalita gestured vaguely with one hand, a line of irritation forming between her brows. “What do men do, when they want to cause trouble? Harassing traders and merchants, barging their way into pleasure houses. They claim to be the Emperor’s eyes. They say it gives them the right to do as they please.” Lalita’s gaze sharpened. “They may have the right. But your father will know far more about the Emperor’s business than I do.”

Hungry, ambitious young nobles trying to curry the Emperor’s favor by striving to fulfill his perceived desires were a nuisance, but a nuisance her father could quash. Nobles acting on the Emperor’s orders—as the nobles that Lalita had so carefully chosen to warn Mehr about claimed to be—would be infinitely more dangerous. Governor though he was, her father could not stand in the way of the Emperor’s direct commands.

“My father doesn’t speak to me about such things,” Mehr said finally.

“I know, dear one,” Lalita said. Her voice was soft. “But ah, enough of serious business. Let me tell you what I learned from a patron last week …”

After one inspiring story about a hapless merchant and two business-minded dancing girls, Mehr was almost relaxed. She was laughing when a guardswoman entered, a grim expression on her face.

“Lady Maryam has asked for you to attend her, my lady,” she said.